After our big day of travel yesterday we didn't bother to set any alarms & we both slept through until 10am. Obviously sleep was exactly what our bodies & minds needed.
After the best coffee we have had internationally, big claim but its true, we set off to explore and get lost in Guilin.
I was very excited to work out that coffee is cheap here in Guilin & plenty of places sell it in cafe's as well as the usual Starbucks etc.
Guilin is a nice change to Hong Kong, it feels like a more complete immersion into Chinese culture. The first thing I noticed was the lack of air pollution and the amount of beautiful green trees & gardens throughout the city. Guilin (formerly known as Kweilin) is located on the west bank of the Li river. Its name means forrest of sweet Osmanthus, due to the large number of Osmanthus trees throughout the city. Interestingly, it is one of only 4 towns in China listed by the state council to protect its cultural heritage & natural scenery as a top priority. They have definitely done a good job of this. The cultural heritage is everywhere, the streets are paved in beautiful stone tiles, there are lots of sculptures, inscriptions carved into rocks, paintings, traditional bridges, lanterns, temple structures & fountains full of koi fish & wishes. It is very scenic. The people here 'look' more traditional with the way the women style their hair and the clothes that are worn by both men and women, I've hardly seen anyone wearing sports branded clothing.
Even though Guilin is listed as one of China's most popular tourist destinations, there are very few western people here, we definitely attract a lot of stares, not necessarily unfriendly though. A few months ago I made the decision to dye my hair light brown, instead of blonde & then a few days before we left the country I also had 3 inches of hair cut off, I am finally feeling good about that, long blonde hair would of only caused more attention & potentially some unwanted attention.
The few locals who do know some english are very eager to come and have a chat & people seem to get a real kick out of yelling "hello" at us & waiting for us to reply in turn. We were even asked to pose with one local in a photo & have caught many people in the act of photographing us.
The streets are full of scooters and bikes, I didn't realise until today that we didn't see any scooters in Hong Kong. I dont think I will ever get use to seeing the way people drive these scooters, piled high with food or building materials, a toddler in the front and another passenger on the back, talking on the phone while weaving through traffic! This seems perfectly normal. And as far as we can see the chaos seems to get on just fine. Everyone seems to have a handle on making sure they are courteous to other drivers. Maybe in not enforcing the use of helmets and having very few rules is the key! It would be interesting to review statistics on road incidents after seeing it work so well.
Another big claim for Guilin is the best meal we have eaten since we have been on holiday!
It was at a place called Rice Noodle Pub in town where the night markets are set up. The food was orgasmic, the restaurant was very clean, the waitress was lovely and it was quite cheap.
We spent a few more hours wandering the streets, looking through the many stalls and shops Guilin has to offer, we then returned to our hostel for a beer, a few games of pool and some blogging.
We ventured out again later that night..
Guilin is stunning at night time! The city is covered in lights which reflect of the surfaces of water and tiles while also casting beautiful colours onto trees in parks and up the sides of the mountain.
We highly recommend a stroll through town of a night time, especially in the fire lake scenic area, you can really appreciate the 2 beautiful Pagodas in the lake known as the sun and moon towers.
After a total of 19.9km's of exploring, we are finally happy to be tucking ourselves into bed.
- Alli
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